Principal Investigator(s):Sherman, Lawrence W.,, University of Maryland, Australian National University, and University of Pittsburgh; Braithwaite, John, University of Maryland, Australian National University, and University of Pittsburgh; Strang, Heather, University of Maryland, Australian National University, and University of Pittsburgh; Barnes, Geoffrey C., University of Maryland, Australian National University, and University of Pittsburgh

The Reintegrative Shaming Experiments (RISE) project
compared the effects of standard court processing with the effects of
a restorative justice intervention known as conferencing for four
kinds of cases: drunk driving (over .08 blood alcohol content) at any
age, juvenile property offending with personal victims, juvenile
shoplifting offenses detected by store security officers, and youth
violent crimes (under age 30). Reintegrative shaming theory underpins
the conferencing alternative. It entails offenders facing those harmed
by their actions in the presence of family and friends whose opinions
they care about, discussing their wrongdoing, and making repayment to
society and to their victims for the costs of their crimes, both
material and emotional. These conferences were facilitated by police
officers and usually took around 90 minutes, compared with around ten
minutes for court processing time. The researchers sought to test the
hypotheses that (1) there would be less repeat offending after a
conference than after a court treatment, (2) victims would be more
satisfied with conferences than with court, (3) both offenders and
victims would find conferences to be fairer than court, and (4) the
public costs of providing a conference would be no greater than, and
perhaps less than, the costs of processing offenders in court. This
study contains data from ongoing experiments comparing the effects of
court versus diversionary conferences for a select group of
offenders. Part 1, Administrative Data for All Cases, consists of data
from reports by police officers. These data include information on the
offender's attitude, the police station and officer that referred the
case, blood alcohol content level (drunk driving only), offense type,
and RISE assigned treatment. Parts 2-5 are data from observations by
trained RISE research staff of court and conference treatments to
which offenders had been randomly assigned. Variables for Parts 2-5
include duration of the court or conference, if there was any violence
or threat of violence in the court or conference, supports that the
offender and victim had, how much reintegrative shaming was expressed,
the extent to which the offender accepted guilt, if and in what form
the offender apologized (e.g., verbal, handshake, hug, kiss), how
defiant or sullen the offender was, how much the offender contributed
to the outcome, what the outcome was (e.g., dismissed, imprisonment,
fine, community service, bail release, driving license cancelled,
counseling program), and what the outcome reflected (punishment,
repaying community, repaying victims, preventing future offense,
restoration). Data for Parts 6 and 7, Year 0 Survey Data from
Non-Drunk-Driving Offenders Assigned to Court and Conferences and Year
0 Survey Data from Drunk-Driving Offenders Assigned to Court and
Conferences, were taken from interviews with offenders by trained RISE
interview staff after the court or conference proceedings. Variables
for Parts 6 and 7 include how much the court or conference respected
the respondent's rights, how much influence the respondent had over
the agreement, the outcome that the respondent received, if the court
or conference solved any problems, if police explained that the
respondent had the right to refuse the court or conference, if the
respondent was consulted about whom to invite to court or conference,
how the respondent was treated, and if the respondent's respect for
the justice system had gone up or down as a result of the court or
conference. Additional variables focused on how nervous the respondent
was about attending the court or conference, how severe the respondent
felt the outcome was, how severe the respondent thought the punishment
would be if he/she were caught again, if the respondent thought the
court or conference would prevent him/her from breaking the law, if
the respondent was bitter about the way he/she was treated, if the
respondent understood what was going on in the court or conference, if
the court or conference took account of what the respondent said, if
the respondent felt pushed around by people with more power, if the
respondent felt disadvantaged because of race, sex, age, or income,
how police treated the respondent when arrested, if the respondent
regretted what he/she did, if the respondent felt ashamed of what
he/she did, what his/her family, friends, and other people thought of
what the respondent did, and if the respondent had used drugs or
alcohol the past year. Demographic variables in this data collection
include offender's country of birth, gender, race, education, income,
and employment.

Access Notes

The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public.
Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

A user guide, a codebook, and data collection
instruments are provided by ICPSR as Portable Document Format (PDF)
files. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems
Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as
the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the
Acrobat Reader is provided through the ICPSR Web site.

Methodology

Study Purpose:
The Reintegrative Shaming Experiments (RISE) project
compared the effects of standard court processing with the effects of
a restorative justice intervention known as conferencing for four
kinds of cases: drunk driving (over .08 blood alcohol content) at any
age, juvenile property offending with personal victims, juvenile
shoplifting offenses detected by store security officers, and youth
violent crimes (under age 30). Reintegrative shaming theory underpins
the conferencing alternative. It entails offenders facing those harmed
by their actions in the presence of family and friends whose opinions
they care about, discussing their wrongdoing, and making repayment to
society and to their victims for the costs of their crimes, both
material and emotional. These conferences were facilitated by police
officers and usually took around 90 minutes, compared with around ten
minutes for court processing time. The researchers sought to test the
hypotheses that (1) there would be less repeat offending after a
conference than after a court treatment, (2) victims would be more
satisfied with conferences than with court (3) both offenders and
victims would find conferences to be fairer than court, and (4) the
public costs of providing a conference would be no greater than, and
perhaps less than, the costs of processing offenders in court.

Study Design:
This study contains data from ongoing experiments
comparing the effects of court and conferences for a select group of
offenders. Because the aim of the research was to compare cases that
were assigned to court with equally serious cases that were assigned
to conference, a case could be accepted into the experiments only if
it would normally be dealt with by a court. The research protocol also
required, however, that eligible cases not be so serious that in the
estimation of the apprehending police officer they could only be dealt
with in court. Thus, the aim of the research team was to include in
the experiment "middle-range" offenses, neither so trivial that they
would normally be dealt with by a simple caution or warning, nor so
serious that police would be reluctant to bypass the court system in
favor of an experimental alternative. Additional eligibility
requirements for drunk-driving cases were: (a) the offender's blood
alcohol content (BAC) was over .08 at the time of the incident, (b)
the offense didn't involve an accident, (c) the offender was not a
police officer, and (d) the offender was eligible for VATAC (Voluntary
Agreement to Attend Court). Eligible offenders for juvenile personal
property and juvenile property security offenses had to be under 18
years old and violent crime offenders had to be under 30 years
old. Cases were sent to RISE from officers throughout the Australian
Federal Police (AFP) in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT)
region. This included uniformed patrol officers from each of the four
Canberra police stations and its special "City Beat" office in the
center of the city, and also from the Traffic Division and the Crime
Branch. Just prior to the commencement of data collection, almost
every constable and sergeant in the region underwent a day-long
information and training session with RISE staff and was provided with
guidance on case eligibility and the procedure for referring matters
into RISE. When police officers had a matter that they believed was
RISE-eligible, they called a 24-hour mobile phone number that was
permanently in the custody of one member of the research
team. Officers were then asked a series of ten screening questions to
verify the eligibility of the case. Once case details were entered
into a log, an envelope containing the random assignment (court or
conference) was opened and the officer was informed of the recommended
disposition immediately. After being informed of the randomly assigned
treatment (court or conference) for each case by the RISE staffer, the
apprehending officer then processed the case accordingly. Victim data
were limited to the juvenile personal property and youth violence
experiments. No drunk-driving offenses included direct victims, so
consequently there were no drunk-driving data on victims. Files were
created consisting of data from reports by police officers (Part 1),
data from observations by trained RISE research staff of court and
conference treatments to which offenders had been randomly assigned
(Parts 2-5), and data from interviews with offenders by trained RISE
interview staff after the court or conference proceedings (Parts 6 and
7).

Sample:
Random sampling.

Data Source:

administrative records, observations, and personal
interviews

Description of Variables:
Part 1, Administrative Data for All Cases, consists
of data from reports by police officers. These data include
information on the offender's attitude, the police station and
officer, that referred the case, blood alcohol content level (drunk
driving only), offense type, and RISE assigned treatment. Parts 2-5
are data from observations by trained RISE research staff of court and
conference treatments to which offenders had been randomly
assigned. Variables for Parts 2-5 include duration of the court or
conference, if there was any violence or threat of violence in court
or conference, supports that the offender and victim had, how much
reintegrative shaming was expressed, the extent to which the offender
accepted guilt, if and in what form the offender apologized (e.g.,
verbal, handshake, hug, kiss), how defiant or sullen the offender was,
how much the offender contributed to the outcome, what the outcome was
(e.g., dismissed, imprisonment, fine, community service, bail release,
driving license, cancelled counseling program), and what the outcome
reflected (punishment, repaying community, repaying victims,
preventing future offense, restoration). Data for Parts 6 and 7, were
taken from interviews with offenders by trained RISE interview staff
after the court or conference proceedings. Variables for Parts 6 and 7
include how much the court or conference respected the respondent's
rights, how much influence the respondent had over the agreement, the
outcome that the respondent received, if the court or conference
solved any problems, if police explained that the respondent had the
right to refuse the court or conference, if the respondent was
consulted about whom to invite to court or conference, how the
respondent was treated, and if the respondent's respect for the
justice system had gone up or down as a result of the court or
conference. Additional variables focused on how nervous the respondent
was about attending the court or conference, how severe the respondent
felt the outcome was, how severe the respondent thought the punishment
would be if he/she were caught again, if the respondent thought the
court or conference would prevent him/her from breaking the law, if
the respondent was bitter about the way he/she was treated, if the
respondent understood what was going on in the court or conference, if
the court or conference took account of what the respondent said, if
the respondent felt pushed around by people with more power, if the
respondent felt disadvantaged because of race, sex, age, or income,
how police treated the respondent when arrested, if the respondent
regretted what he/she did, if the respondent felt ashamed of what
he/she did, what his/her family, friends, and other people thought of
what the respondent did, and if the respondent had used drugs or
alcohol the past year. Demographic variables in this data collection
include offender's country of birth, gender, race, education, income,
and employment.

Response Rates:
The findings from court and conference
observations (Parts 2-5) are based upon the completion of at least one
independent observation report for 86 percent of drunk-driving
offenders, 66 percent of juvenile personal property offenders, 75
percent of juvenile property security offenders, and 68 percent of
youth violent crime offenders. The findings from offender interviews
(Parts 6 and 7) are based upon completion rates of 85 percent for
drunk-driving offenders, 76 percent of juvenile personal property
offenders, 73 percent of juvenile property security offenders, and 72
percent of youth violent crime offenders.

Presence of Common Scales:
Several Likert-type scales were used.

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Standardized missing values.

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:2001-06-18

Version History:

2006-03-30 File UG2993.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

2006-03-30 File CQ2993.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.

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